ASK WEEGE - Money, Money, Money

29 August 07

Welcome to The Pier's 'Ask Weege' column. Every week the 880 South's front man and music scene veteran will be answering questions and providing tips for up-and-coming bands and musicians.

This week's question is from Danny, 'How much time and money do you put into 880 South? You know with gas to get to gigs and practices, and recording studio time, it must take a bit of a toll on your budget.'

Weege: Time - even when I devote my off-time to make 880 South work. It’s never enough. It’s very easy to get lazy in this business. To a band that’s just starting out I would recommend that you practice a minimum of 3 times a week. You need to get your chops, your rhythm, you need to be tight and in the pocket if you’re gonna start performing live. Bust your ass, don’t get lazy, don’t flake on band-mates. It’s irresponsible and you’re just wasting 3-4 other guy’s time.

880 South is at a point where we can do 1, maybe 2 practices a week. Depending on how many shows, and if we’re recording. Everything factors in. When we go to the studio, each session easily runs about 6 hours. Sometimes less. For the less experienced musicians, it would probably go longer. Recording is not easy. As for gigging and how much time is spent I would say you are there from 6pm-2am, sometimes 3am. Sucks huh? You’re talking about 6-8 hours of my night!?! Yeah - this is why having a friend as a manager or a manager of course would be helpful.

Have your contracts in order (email contracts work too). That way you can get paid right away and there are no discrepancies or anyone trying to screw you out of money. Plus your manager can hang around and collect while you guys break down and load the van. Saves time, you can get to the liquor store before 2am and party at your hotel (that’s if you’re in California of course). This is one thing in the music biz that sucks, especially when you’re a headlining band. You show up at 6pm for sound check. Sometimes you sit around and scratch your ass cause there ain’t shit to do. Alcohol won’t be served for 2 hours. So you end up sneakin’ booze in, or drinking in your van. Bad move. You’re totally wasted by the time you get to your set at midnight.

Obviously, those were younger days, when we were a lot less professional. I just thought I would give you insight on that, cause it’s crazy sometimes. You literally have nothing to do. So try and keep yourself entertained, if you have friends in town, visit them or have them come see you. If you’re an easy set up band, and your sound check doesn’t run almost 2 hours. That’s awesome. We have the easiest set up in the biz. We try not to complicate things, so we’re done in 30 mins most of the time and we head out to grab a bite to eat after sound check.

Back to TIME! You spend a lot of time, and even now as a father I feel like I miss a lot of things because of all the time I devote to 880 South. I’m trying to find a balance, as Atmosphere would say. Music business is not easy, especially in the beginning. You devote all your free time, that’s not just for performing, it’s for rehearsing, promoting, recording, and writing (if you’re a songwriter).

Money - without getting too personal. I will use some rough figures of a monthly breakdown of what we spend. However, we’re at a stage where we need to spend money, to make money. So it’s not the craziest thing, and it’s not impossible. Most of you starting out won’t need these kind of expenses. The biggest hit is touring, one of the main reasons 880 South has had to pull back on touring the last few years. That’s going to change soon.

Gas - I would say for every 600 miles you will spend about $200. I based that on gas prices from almost a year ago when we took our trip to Huntington and back. It was just under $200 to drive there and drive back. All in all it depends on your vehicle, how you drive (are you heavy footed), and how many mountains you are climbin’ to your destination. Oh and of course Gas Prices!

Food - Depends on your mates. One thing about the road, you eat a lot of junk, deal with a lot of constipation, and you always have to go to the bathroom in the worst places and the worst timing. Best bet is to make the venues that book you feed you. Sometimes they’ll throw in a pizza, or they have their own restaurant. This should be pre-negotiated in your contract/email (ask me about this, it’s important). So I would say roughly $8-$10 per person, per meal. Round it off to 3 meals a day. About $30 per band member. That’s if you don’t get meals comped (usually a venue will only comp your dinner). It saves you a lot of money. Trust me.

Beer - The Venue should comp you a minimum of 2-3 drink tickets. Don’t let them jip you out. This is why you need to have a contract/email printed out for every show. If you have a drinking problem, I expect you will spend in the $50-$75 range. This is a great way to F up a tour, unless you have a day job and can afford your own alcohol. I would suggest mooching off of fans. Most of them love buying musicians beer.

Just be ready to be the socialite of the night. You don’t wanna leave a bad impression on a fan. Thanks for the beer. LATER! It’s always nice when they’re of the opposite sex. You will always encounter a weird guy though. It’s almost stalker like, and they wanna know every little detail about you and sometimes they start spitting off about their personal life to you. I know I’m not the only one who’s dealt with this. C’mon!?! It’s actually great for late night clowning and shit talk. Just remember, that guy probably bought a CD. So be nice.

Hotel - Motel 6 is cheap. But don’t stay at the one in Las Cruces, NM. It is literally the most disgusting hotel I have ever slept in. I was terrified and I slept on my sleeping bag. If you wanna upgrade and spend some money on a decent hotel. It’s sometimes worth it. Sometimes we’ll get a double queen for around $80-$90. However, there will be times where you need to crash in the van, or crash at a friends/fans house. Don’t be ashamed to do so. Sometimes they feed you.

Transportation & Repairs - We bought ourselves a late 90’s Dodge Ram Van. Ran me about $2500. If you have other means, a bus, one of those fancy dodge diesel vans. Go for it. Hell use your mom’s van if you can, save as much money as you can in the beginning. Whatever you do, don’t drive in 3 separate cars. Waste of gas, and it takes you longer to get places. So we got a van, cause driving down in 3 V8 vehicles was ridiculous on the wallet. Very reliable even though on our first trip the fan, clutch & radiator took a huge crapolla on us. That’s only because I rushed it out of the shop. Should have test driven it a few times. We were in a hurry. I would test drive before you buy anything. If you got the kind of money or credit to buy a brand new van, by all means do it. But it really won’t help you much other than having a nice new reliable van. You can get by with a beater for a few years.

Vans need maintenance. As I said, my van broke down on 152 West coming back from Huntington Beach. The towing costs alone were in the $200 range. Thank god my dad is a mechanic. Repairs aren’t cheap. I highly recommend checking your oil, water, and transmission fluid at every stop you make. When you travel, climates change, altitudes change, therefore, your vehicle acts a bit crazy. I can’t really put a price on how much It all costs. Tune ups are key! That’ll run you around $50-$75. Unless you do the jiffy lube thing. Don’t let your van sit for too long either. Things go bad when a vehicle sits for months.

Studio & Replication - costs range from $2,000-$3,000. Our last album ran us in the $3,500 range. Some studios go up in the $10,000-$30,000 ranges. You’re talking a massive production. If you don’t have a fan base yet, I would hook up with a friend who has pro tools and play around for a while until you can afford to spend some money. Some demo deals will go in the $300-$500 range. That’s 3-4 songs tops. These costs don’t include the cost of replication. You’re talking around another $2500-$3000 for replication. Sometimes you find a good deal, but I like discmakers.com because they are reliable and their product is quality with a lot of perks. They also include mastering (another cost if you do it separately).

Rent - Most people need a rehearsal space. Starting out, it’s not as important, unless your neighbors hate you and complain. I suggest rehearsing in the early afternoon before folks get home from work. That’s how we used to pull it off. But when you get things moving, I highly recommend looking up a rehearsal room in your city. Somewhere neutral really helps create a better environment than your homie’s garage or bedroom. Plus you’ll never have to hear your bandmate say,’dude it’s my house!' So this cost can be $0 - FREE! Or it can run you in the $250-$500 a month range. When we first started out, we got a large rehearsal room at 3B studios (there is a waiting list). So we decided to whore it out to other bands. So we’d only practice 3 days a week, so the other bands could share the remaining days. Saved us a lot of money. Right now we’re paying about $200 a month, and that’s my drummer’s studio we rehearse at.

Promotion - On average 880 South spends around $150-$300 for flyers. Sometimes more depending on how many shows we do. If we get posters, that obviously goes up. I suggest shopping around more than anything. I would check out psprint.com, they have great prices. In the 90’s I would put out ads in the local metro mag. It costs me about $200+ a month. Crazy, but it did help sell CDs. I would suggest getting a good sized ¼ page ad and sharing it with another band or two from your area. Maybe even a clothing company, or a skate shop. Cross promotion is key. There are many ways to promote and not spend money, but sometimes having a nice 2 sided full color stock flyer is key.

If you hand people paper, they fold it, crumple it. They never see it again. Think about it. When we first started out, paper flyers were the norm. But you really don’t save that much money unless you have a kickass industrial printer at home. Might as well get 5,000 flyers instead of 50 or 100 flyers. Have them professionally made. The more professionalism you project, the more serious venues and your audience will respect you. You have to spend a little to make a little. That’s life, and at first, you don’t make shit. That’s all folks! At least that’s all I can remember.

Have a question for Weege? Send them to Ask Weege